The lecture, set to take place on 9 February, will also see Rob Kirk, the editorial development manager at Sky News, present a first-year student with the Bob Friend Memorial Scholarship.

The award pays a year’s worth of tuition fees for a promising journalism student at the university and also guarantees them a four-week internship at Sky News.

The event, which is free and open to the public, has occurred annually since 2009 – the year after Friend died – and Kirk believes he would have approved of the event.

“This partnership between Sky News and the University of Kent is now in its fourth year and has provided wonderful opportunities for young journalists at the start of their careers,” he said.

Professor Tim Luckhurst, head of the centre for journalism, who described the scholarship as ‘among the most prestigious prizes available to undergraduate students of journalism”, added: ‘Alex is an inspiration to many aspiring journalists and a particularly good role model for women seeking to reach the top of the profession.”